Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Fair, Balanced, and to the Point

About this web log

This blog is intended as an objective and dispassionate source of information on the latest CAM research. Since my background is in pharmacy and allopathic medicine, I view all CAM as advancing through the development pipeline to eventually become integrated into mainstream medical practice. Some will succeed while others fail. But all are treated fairly here.

About the author

John Russo, Jr., PharmD, is president of The MedCom Resource, Inc. Previously, he was senior vice president of medical communications at www.Vicus.com, a complementary and alternative medicine website.

Common sense considerations

The material on this weblog is for informational purposes. It is not medical advice or counsel. Be smart, consult your health professional before using CAM.

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Therapeutic music is music with integrated RHS frequency of 60 beats/min.

During the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, researchers from Germany studied whether therapeutic music might lead to more correct positioning and the need for fewer verification films.

First, the details.

33 patients were assigned to a treatment group.

Therapeutic music for relaxation and calming

Control patients did not listen any therapeutic music

Pulse rate during radiotherapy and the number of the verifications were recorded.

Verification was calculated using the number of radiation divided by the number of verifications.

Subjective mental state was also examined with a questionnaire.

And, the results.

The pulse frequency of patients, who listened to therapeutic music during radiotherapy was reduced more than in the Control patients.

Effectiveness of TM was high for young (30-40 years = 70%) and old (80-90 years = 58%) patients.

Effectiveness was less for middle-aged patients (40-50 years = 42%; 50-60 years = 40 %; 60-80 years = 51%).

Effectiveness of therapeutic music increased with longer radiotherapy sessions.

The verification quotient for patients who listened therapeutic music was 5.5 vs 4.6 for those who didn’t listen therapeutic music.

65% of patients rated therapeutic music very good, 35% as good.

96% of patients stated they felt noticeably more calmly and relaxed.

The bottom line?

It’s not clear if any of these findings achieve statistical significant.

Regardless, the authors concluded, “Therapeutic music during radiotherapy leads to calming and relaxation (reduced pulse frequency) and to a more correct positioning (higher radiotherapy-verification-quotient) and is felt and estimated subjectively as positive (thus more acceptance and compliance).”